In the art of computing, along with other arts, it is often desirable to correlate events. Some events are relatively easy to correlate. For example, if a notebook computer having a mechanical hard drive is dropped and the hard drive fails, one may conclude with a high degree of confidence that the “dropping” event caused the “failure” event.
Conversely, some events are difficult to correlate. For example, if a server fails in a data center, there may not be a cause that is readily apparent. However, there are many factors that could have contributed to the failure, including temperature, humidity, air purity, vibration, altitude, workloads, adjacent equipment, installed components, and latent product defects. Accordingly, it can be difficult to form causal correlations between certain events.